Welcome to the European bracket of Pro Circuit: Amsterdam. It’s one of the most ancient of fights—the Netherlands against Germany. Their rivalry on the soccer fields is legendary in Europe, sometimes going beyond friendly banter and into outright war. That probably won’t be happening here, although Jeroen is one scary fellow when he’s angry. The three B’s are in effect, though, and this match should be a lot more pleasant than hooligans running around beating in each others’ heads.

Jeroen is running a straight Marvel Knights deck because of its amazing consistency. He felt that it was almost impossible not to make Day 2 with it because he would never miss a team-up, a plot twist, or a drop because of the redundancy inherent in his design.

Kristian doesn’t care much about consistency. He chose to team up his Marvel Knights with Underworld, going for the all-concealed theme backed up with the normal plot twists and the unusually effective Sucker Punch. He was the only player to finish 11-1 in the Constructed portion of the event and should definitely be feeling confident now that he can return to Constructed for the Top 8 and the first prize of $40,000.

It seems like this matchup will come down to a race with the player drawing the most Crime and Punishments probably coming out on top. Jeroen has a little edge in having four copies of Quick Kill as well, a card that could turn out to be essential in this match where both players are jockeying for position and a good board presence.

Game 1

Jeroen won the die roll and chose even initiative, hinting at his lack of playtesting for this match. Kristian did playtest for this match, and the conclusion he drew was that the game never, ever went past turn 5, so the common-sense choice of the even initiative wasn’t the right choice here.

Jeroen went on his trademark Wild Ride for Blade, Eric Brooks on turn 2 and recruited him. Iron Fist showed up for Kristian. They fought, they stunned, they recovered. More excitement is on the way!

Elektra, Elektra Natchios and Luke Cage, Street Enforcer were then recruited by both players on turn 3 and 4. Okay, so I lied about the excitement.

On turn 5, the action started heating up with Daredevil, Matt Murdock for Jeroen and no real 5-drop for Kristian, who had to make do with Orb and Yelena Belova ◊ Black Widow. Kristian’s Luke Cage tried to attack Daredevil, but Daredevil wouldn’t have any of that and darted into the hidden area. Of course Luke isn’t the Street Enforcer for no reason and he went after him anyway, boosted with two copies of Hell’s Fury stunning both characters. The endurance totals were Jeroen 9 and Kristian 10 at this point. Yelena then ran through the empty visible area to beat up Jeroen directly with a little help from Crime and Punishment and a pat on the back from Orb, putting Jeroen at –6 endurance. Jeroen wasn’t looking dejected at all and Kristian feared that he might have something up his sleeve. He didn’t have just something. He had three Crime and Punishments! That was by far enough to help his Elektra and Luke Cage outdo Christian’s in the damage department and take the first game.

Game 2

Kristian chose odd initiative for this match, which Jeroen considered before nodding that he understood how it worked now.

A mulligan from Kristian kicked things off. Jeroen opened with Wild Ride, Quick Kill, Jetpack and Spiderman, the Amazing Spiderman and didn’t really feel the need to go fish. Whether that was the correct play or not is up for debate. It had the amazing turn 2 Blade, Eric Brooks with Jetpack but Jeroen had no 3, 4 or 5 drops and that could obviously cost him the game.

And it did. He came up with Wild Ride for Elektra on turn 3 but a pass on turns 4 and 5 completely blew him out of game 2 and they had to go to a deciding third match.

Game 3

“Yeah, you were right. These games never go to turn 6,” Jeroen said before choosing the odd initiative as well. He opened with a nice curve of characters for turns 2 through 5 and kept his hand immediately, the last game still replaying in his head. Kristian once again mulliganed but drew a nice grip, with Orb, Iron Fist, and Punisher’s Armory.

Orb and Iron Fist were also the first characters on the board in the last game. They were joined by a Blade, who was sadly looking for the Jetpack that was nowhere to be found. Turn 3 actually featured two different characters for the first time this match, as Jeroen led with Stick. Kristian stuck to Elektra.

Luke Cage once again showed up on both sides, making this game almost a mirror of the first game. This time they even had matching copies of Daredevil, Matt Murdock. Turn 5 was once again the deciding turn. with Jeroen having the initiative. The endurance was favoring Kristian a bit, with a 9-point lead over Jeroen’s 16 endurance. Kristian took a long time figuring out his formation, then finally settled on Luke Cage in the hidden area’s front row and Orb in the hidden area’s support row to Luke’s right. When Jeroen tried to attack Daredevil with his Luke Cage, Matt Murdock quickly leapt into the hidden area where he was set up to protect the little Orb from harm. Jeroen’s best plan after that play by Kristian was to simply team-attack him directly and power-up his Luke Cage. Crime and Punishment added to the endurance loss and a Swan Dive stunning Daredevil took out Kristian’s Luke Cage for a final score of 11 to -7 before Kristian could attack.

This was Kristian’s turn to not be worried, as he had gotten Dagger, Child of Light with Wild Ride this turn to fetch Midnight Sons and two Crime and Punishments. An Evil Awakens enabled a power-up and another Evil Awakens provided Kristian’s characters with more than enough ATK to put Jeroen below –7 endurance.

Game and match to Kristian Kockott, who moves on to the semifinals.